What Are The Sources Of Anti-Semitism?

WRITER'S NOTE: This post engendered a lot of empassioned responses. Some of the responses were directed at the question I posed; Others were directed at me.

I normally don't shy away from passionate responses: In fact, I feel that part of my job is to write about topics people care about enough to respond passionately to. And when I saw the response to the British test question I described below--the same question I posed here--I thought that this would be a question our readers might want to respond to as well.

(I had actually been thinking of asking this question for a while. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article about Goldman Sachs that led to the arrival of some of the anti-Semitic commenters who seem to be prevalent online. As I was deleting their comments, I thought, as I had before, "Where on earth does this stuff come from?")

As I said, the post was greeted with an empassioned response. Lots of the feedback, believe it or not, was positive: I was praised for starting a discussion on a sensitive topic. But lots of the response was also negative--as in, "What kind of an insensitive rockhead would ever ask a question like that?"

Some readers also felt that, if I was going to ask why some people hate Jews, I should also ask why some people hate blacks, Mormons, Christians, Muslims, and every other group that is occasionally subjected to hate. And I certainly could have asked those questions, too (If the commenters on my Goldman post and the British religious-studies exam had focused on Muslims, I might have asked that question first). One smart reader suggested that I just summarize all those questions by asking "Why do people hate?" And that was a reasonable question.

And then I got the feedback that clued me into the fact that I had crossed a line I hadn't intended to cross. Some people I like and respect told me they felt insulted by and uncomfortable with the post.

That did it.

Whatever interesting responses came from the post, I now regret writing it. (I'm okay making people feel uncomfortable about some topics, but not this one.)

The question was immediately blasted as inappropriate and quickly withdrawn.

But it's an interesting and important question.

Along with many other sites, this site is occasionally visited by people whose mission in life appears to be to express hatred of Jews. (We delete these comments as quickly as we can, but they're always startling in their venom, meanness, and stupidity.)

And hatred of Jews has obviously been an ongoing theme worldwide for centuries.

Hitler, for example, hated the Jews so much that he murdered 6 million people.

Why?

What is the source of this animosity? Why does it perpetuate itself? Where did this prejudice come from?

I'm asking this question seriously, and I'm going to Bleacher any comments that don't answer it seriously. As usual, I'm also going to ban any anti-Semitic commenters. And I'm only going to keep the comments open for 24 hours, because I know what will happen once I stop checking back in and reading them.

In the meantime, I'm genuinely mystified and curious, and I look forward to reading your responses.

Why do some people hate Jews?

Or, put in a more delicate fashion, what are the sources of the anti-Semitism that seem to play such a central role in many people's lives?

NOTE: The original photo in this post was of a couple of jovial Orthodox Jews, one of whom was wearing a traditional hat. Some readers found that needlessly provocative. One suggested I replace it with a picture of Natalie Portman. So I have.

NOTE 2: The original title of this post was "Why Do People Hate Jews?" That made a lot of people angry. Folks seem more comfortable with the current title, which, admittedly, is less direct. So I changed it.

UPDATE: Now I see why Britain was startled when this question appeared on that religious-studies exam. Apparently, it's not a question you're supposed to ask.

UPDATE 2: Readers would also now like me to ask the following questions:

Why do people hate ____ people [fill in any skin color]

Why do people hate ____ [fill in any religion]

"Why do people hate?"

Those are all good questions, too. Feel free to add your answers to those below, too.

UPDATE 3: John Podhoretz has been kind enough to send along a list of books on this topic, written by professor Robert Wistrich. It's available here. Please let me know which is the best, and I'll read it and summarize it in a future post.

NOTE 4: Thank you. Lots of interesting comments mixed in with some more predictable ones (along with a lot of frustration with me for even posing the question). I'm going to close the comments now, because I can't keep scanning them. I'll read Mr. Podhoretz's book recommendation above and come back with the scholarly answers.

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The Board Room

Editors' Picks

My answer would be that people don't hate jews. I don't even think Hitler really hated Jews as much as he used them as a convenient excuse to give his people a scapegoat to rally against (Great Depression / hyperinflation / WWI aftermath) and thus consolidated his power. People need something to rally against to stay united. Look at the USA, we were at our best when we had the USSR to rally against... But now look at us. We have been a slow-motion train wreck of a divisive, culturally degenerative society ever since the Soviet Union ceased to give us purpose and unity.

The Jewish religion encourages a separate identity for Jews, it asks them to keep themselves apart in certain respects from the cultures they live within. That can lead to conflict. People hate Christians for much the same reason.

In the middle east, everyone hates everyone, it is traditional there.

If Christians had been a small minority in Hitlers Germany, they would have also been murdered just as they were in Nero's Rome. I think it's more being a small religious group within a larger culture than it is specifically about Judaism.

Historically, Jews have had religious traditions and doctrines that have allowed them to thrive (or at least survive) where others have struggled. That combined with being members of a highly visible minority is sufficient.

During the Black Plague, Jews washed themselves more often than once a year, which reduced their infection rate; they were blamed.

Due to Christian bans on usury, they were inevitably the money lenders; they were blamed.

The Jews have always been the whipping boy of Christians who believe they killed their God. Also, with the creation of Israel the Arabs in large part now hate the Jews. Look at Israel and what they have done as compared to most Arab countries from a standard of living and prosperity. Also, education is key to the Jews and a lot of haters are not highly intelligent people leading to bigotry. And of course, you all showing a picture of Jews who are the extreme minority of Jews shows your bigotry as well.

I believe anti-Semitism persists because a very small subset of Judaism - very specifically, Zionists and some of the hardline Haredim - is composed of very selfish, very mentally unwell people who lie and cheat and steal for their own self-aggrandizement - and then all Jews are blamed for this.

The Zionists are TERRIBLE. They murder and cheat and kill and steal and abuse Arabs (not that the Arabs treat them any better - but still, it does go both ways) - they break the Commandments regularly, they are not following their own rules in any way that matters, and they threaten EVERYONE who disagrees with them. Even with Jewish ancestry myself, I have been personally threatened by American and Israeli Zionists several times for taking the position that the expulsions of Palestinians from Israel in 1948 was wrong and that the IDF treats Palestinians unethically at present as well.

But what you get is people who cannot distinguish between Zionism - a fundamentalist ideology of bigotry and occupation that supports religious war and discrimination - and the larger Judaism - which is a wonderful faith when practiced as it is written, with prohibitions against killing, lying, and stealing, and which exhorts people to treat others as they would wish to be treated.

Jews are not alone in this. The modern backlash against Christianity dates to these new Crusades started by fundamentalists in the U.S. government against Muslim countries - but most Christians are not anything like the psychotic generals who believe they are arbiters of God's law. Islam is routinely derided for its support for jihadism and for child marriage - but in my experience, most Muslims are peaceful people and in fact take a hard line against the sexual abuse of children. It happens with minorities, too - I routinely see commenters on BI and other sites blame all blacks because some blacks are violent and/or criminal, or Latinos for the same thing, never once discussing the millions of peaceful and hardworking blacks and Latinos who help the world go around and love their families, day after day.

The solution is that people HAVE to be taught NOT to blame every member of a group for the actions of its worst members. People are not their religions or their skin colors, nor are they all akin to the worst of what one reads about. Most people worldwide in ALL faiths and races, in my experience, are peaceful and hardworking, and should not be blamed just because a small subsection of others who share their faith or race break the social contract.

People hate religions of all kinds. People hate races of all kinds. Jews are the only group that combine both a race of people and a religion. This brings focus to two kinds of hatred in one group of people.

Jews have been a lightening rod for criticism and hatred since the time of Christ. Most of which has been out of their control, a few within.

Today, I feel as though individuals who hate Jews do so for the following reasons:

1) Israel - Israel has more UN violations than any other country. They refuse to acknowledge the degree of their nuclear capability; they refuse to acknowledge the 1967 lines drawn between Palestine and Israel; and on top of it all, the undying backing from our United States thru all of this (though Obama has taken the hardest stance on their settlement violations). We pay Israel $3B in aid every year - for what exactly I do not fully understand myself. But if we're to hate anything it should be Israel's track record, their poor decisions, their treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank, etc. Not the people themselves. Your cat pees on the carpet, you don't hate the cat, you hate the cat's behavior.

2) Media Control - I truly think some people believe Jews control media. I've never heard a logical defense for how this would ever be possible. However, the prevalence of the Jewish culture, the Jewish condition, as played by Jewish characters does seem to be significantly disproportionate to the size and degree by which they are a member of our overall mixed culture. Ever notice that? They're one of the country's smallest minorities yet they play a main character in the overall story. Why is that? Could be that there is a much higher percentage of media and entertainment influencers who are of Jewish decent, which could influence the outcome of the entertainment we see.

There is evidence of the West's deliberate decision to not cover the complete story of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. No one does a better job shedding the much needed light on the realities of life in occupied Palestine than Anna Baltzer.

Comments

The Bleachers

Henry, people like to express hatred for certain ethnic groups because it gives them a sense of power over otherwise powerless circumstances. Stereotyping and attack of the other are tried and true political techniques engineered to entrench your support among the "masses" while simultaneously driving the "masses" against your opponent (whom you loudly proclaim is a "Jew-lover"). Focusing the attention of the mass of people on some immutable characteristic (real or imagined) of that which they are supposed to hate also draws their attention and any scrutiny AWAY from you and your cronies.

For the most part, people pick on the Jews because, to them, they are an easy target for scorn from people who mostly suck at life. Why?

1) Jews have their own God--and it's not your God either although you are subject to it's whims. Not to blame the victim here, but Jews, by trying to stay very true to the Pentateuch, are always separatists from non-Jews. Not gonna do your thing, will only do my thing WITHOUT COMPROMISE!! Some people take this behavior as an affront to their own method of living and are insulted when Jews won't budge on the no-pork thing, or the no eating before sundown on the Sabbath thing, or the circumcision thing, or the no shellfish thing, or the Jesus is not the messiah thing. Pick a thing that is unique to Jewish worship and there is someone who will have an issue with it because they are projecting this behavior to be an indictment of their own. It is and it isn't but that's not the point. The point is no one has a strong bead on spirituality and faith, no matter how many people swear that God wrote 10 laws on stone tablets and no one wrote any before Moses parted the Red Sea. Simply put, the air with which many devout Jews carry themselves just rubs many non-Jews the wrong way and makes it easy for them to do nothing while someone is attacing a Jew for just being a Jew. Bottom line--The strict exercise of Jewish faith has a side effect of making the faithful unlikeable by Jews and non-Jews (just listen to an Hasidic Jew, an Orthodox Jew, and a Chabad Jew arguing over who is more Jewish while a Jew who eats bacon rolls her eyes, and you'll know what I mean).

2) Jews stick together--in 1798, when most God-fearing Christian White people were sticking together in the New World to deny rights to Africans, hardly a peep was heard about their solidarity, but get a few Jews in a room to talk Seder and OH MY FUCKING GOD, ITS A ZIONIST CONSPIRACY!!! BURN THEM AT THE STAKE!! In a reference to my low hanging fruit statement above, it's easy to sigle out Jews for harassment because they stick together. Sure, after the God-fearing White Christian folk who mindlessly followed Joseph R. McCarthy started calling every Jew a Communist because they fled Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, East Germany and any other Communist country (because communists are atheists) and Jews in America started changing their names to be able to feed their families, its easy to see how those damned Jews stick together, buddy!! But all that stuff was a cover so that Jews could continue to hide their moneymaking secrets from the WASPy public at large. Doing well in school, studying late at night, going to Yeshiva instead of P.S. 14, and having demanding parents who laid a guilt trip on you thicker than a schmear of cream cheese at Katz's had nothing to do with Jewish success at all--it was all they secrets learned from sticking together (kinda like Anne Frank's family).

3) ISRAEL!! Nuff said--bum rush a country during the Second Egyptian Dynasty, take it over from local nomadic tribes, and declare it to be your promised land because the one true God said so. For some reason the Germans, French, Spanish. British, Americans, Russians, and everyone else gets bent out of shape by Israel. Never mind that Israel was created by those same powers out of the remnants of a very disorganized Ottoman Empire, Persia, and Arabia--now it seems that the Jews must be hated for taking the land that was reserved for them by NATO after WWII. The Russian hatred of Israel is least understandable because that's where they sent all their Jews. Maybe Russia was miffed that it was unable to win an arms race without the mathematicians it was exiling to that small desert nation.

Anyway, the real reason that people hate Jews is because they are shallow, superficial, solipsistically inferior, and would rather lash out at someone else than spend one iota of time improving themselves.